Man Seen Trying To Lure Girls Into Car At Edina Target

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — A Twin Cities mother has a warning for parents after she said an older man tried to abduct one of her children at a Target store.

It happened Tuesday afternoon at the Target on 7000 York Avenue.

“Honestly, Target in Edina is probably the safest place to go right now because they have so many eyes on everything,” the mother said.

But for a brief minute, this mother — who asked we hide her identity — said her children’s safety was in jeopardy as they shopped at the Target with their nanny.

(credit: CBS)

“My nanny called and she was just shaken,” she said.

The nanny told the mother a man, who appeared to be in his 60s, started talking to the two girls. She said her daughters noticed the man was by himself and had nothing in his cart.

“And my nanny just turned around and right then he leaned down toward my 5 year old and said, ‘Little one, your mommy had to leave and she wanted me to take you to my house with me, and she’ll meet us later,’” the mother said. “That’s when my nanny had just scooped them up very calmly, said, ‘You guys, let’s go check out,’ and then went to security.”

(credit: Facebook)

The mother also showed up to the store and filed a report when police arrived. She then posted what happened on Facebook, which has since been shared hundreds of times. She went on to say other parents had similar stories of an elderly man approaching young girls at the same Target store recently.

“I was just shocked at how brazen he was to do it right there in the middle [of Target] at noon on a Tuesday,” she said.

While at the store talking with security, she said surveillance footage showed that after the man talked to the girls he bought some items using a credit card, and that police now know who he is. But her concern, and that of her daughters, remains.

“If we can stop him doing anything bad to one child, it’s worth all of it,” she said.

A spokesperson for Edina police said officers did respond to a suspicious person call at the store Tuesday and that it is an active investigation. They want to remind people that if they see something that feels out of place, say something.